


take me to war

by whiplash



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: "Creep", Dissociation, Episode Tag, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-19
Updated: 2019-04-19
Packaged: 2020-01-16 09:55:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18519058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whiplash/pseuds/whiplash
Summary: The drive from Caulfield back to Roswell. Michael's not dealing well. Neither is Alex.





	take me to war

“I’m sorry,” Alex says.

The jeep’s parked up by the side of the road, but he still has his hands on the wheel. His voice’s flat and his eyes have locked on to something far away. Michael tries to follow his gaze but there’s nothing to see. Just miles of yellow sand and, above that, dark clouds gathering. 

“You got us out of there,” Valenti replies. “You did good, man.” 

He’s in the front of the jeep now, next to Alex. 

For a while, he’d been in the back with Michael, his fingers warm against Michael’s wrist and his voice steady as he reported back to Alex. _Just shock_ , he’d said, and, if Michael had been himself, he would have clocked the guy for sounding so damned casual about it. Only, he hadn’t been himself. He hadn’t been anyone, or anything, just an empty body, held up by the seatbelt and Kyle _freaking_ Valenti. And then, as if to add to the humiliation, Valenti had been the one to notice when Michael’s stomach rebelled and bile surged up his throat and cold sweat soaked through his t-shirt. He’d called for Alex to stop, and he’d helped Michael out of the car, and he’d steadied him as he’d emptied his belly onto the sand. 

But now, now Valenti’s in the front, next to Alex, and the engine’s off. Everything has stopped and everything’s quiet and Michael’s never felt so goddamned empty as he does this very moment. He looks down, down at his hands, and clenches them into fists. The nails dig into his palms, which is alright. The maimed hand cramps, which is even better. He lifts both hands, still fisted, and digs the knuckles into his eyes until colors explode in front of him. Yellow, orange, red. 

Like fire, he thinks, and some of the emptiness lifts, only to leave room for a suffocating sense of sickness instead. 

“And just how do you figure that?” he hears Alex say, heat in his voice. “I took two civilians into what might as well have been an active war zone. I took the two of you, hell, I took _Michael_ , to a black site where they’ve been-“ 

Michael digs his knuckles harder into his eyes, fighting the urge to cover his ears. 

Mother, he thinks, and the word might be foreign to him, but the sense of loss is not. Mother. Mom. Mommy? 

Behind his eyelids, the world’s on fire. His _mother’s_ on fire. 

“I _know_ ,” Valenti says. 

His voice’s sharp, sharper than it usually is around Alex these days, sharp enough to catch even Michael’s attention. He blinks his eyes open, blinks and blinks as the world begin to take shape in front of him. 

“But maybe we don’t need to revisit the whole alien Guantanamo Bay horror show experience right here and now, eh? Let’s save the debrief for until later.” 

“Right,” Alex agrees. “Yes. Okay.” 

The heat’s gone, and the soldier’s back. Another loss. 

Michael’s still not sure why Alex pulled off the road. It would make more sense to head straight back to town. That building just went up in flames. Black site or not, an explosion’s bound to draw attention. Mind still hazy, Michael frowns out through the window, gazing up and down the road, and then back over at the men in the front of the car. In the driver’s seat, Alex sits ramrod straight. He has a death grip on the steering wheel, his knuckles white and bloodless. In a total opposite, Valenti slouches in his seat; leaning towards Alex, close but not quite touching. 

“You did good,” he’s saying again, and he’s back to using his doctor’s voice. “You kept us safe. You got us out before things went south.” 

Alex shakes his head, and something about the light of the car makes him look grey. 

Grey and strangely old and… 

Michael’s brain finally adds one and one together. _Some genius you are,_ he thinks, digging his nails deeper into his palm. _Some selfish, stupid, fucking idiot you are, Guerin._

“It’s not your job to keep us safe,” he tells Alex, forcing the words out because they need to be said. To the surprise of exactly no one, Alex shakes his head again, as stubborn in this as he’s been about everything else in his life. 

“You didn’t 'take us' anywhere,” Michael insists, his voice thin and high for all that he means for it to come out as steady as Valenti’s. “You couldn’t have stopped me if you’d tried, hell, you probably couldn’t even have stopped Valenti. You’re not our nanny, Manes, and you’re not in charge of us. Fuck’s sake, this isn’t even your war. No matter what the army might have drilled into your head, it’s not your job to keep the rest of us safe.” 

Not your job to keep me safe, he means. Except- 

_You’re mine,_ echoes in his mind, the memory of Alex’s voice filling his head and drowning out Alex’s actual reply. _You’re mine,_ that’s what he’d said. _You’re mine._ And then; _you’re a miserable liar_. Only Alex had been wrong, had been dead wrong. Michael doesn’t belong to anyone. Doesn’t belong anywhere. _You’re mine,_ Alex disagrees again, and _liar_ and he’d been wrong, dead wrong, but Michael had believed him, he must have, because he’d ran, he’d ran, and he’d left his mother behind, and now she’s-

Fire. Everything’s on fire. But, somehow, Michael’s still cold. 

He shivers, feeling the skin on his forearms tighten into goose-bumps under the denim jacket. In humans, it’s called the pilomotor reflex, but Michael doesn’t know the word for it in his mother’s language. In fact, Michael doesn’t know _any_ words in his mother’s language. And she had known none in his. Yet she’d told him to run, only not in words, not in English, or any other language, she’d just held his hand, and he’d known, just like he’d known that she was his mother, just like- 

“-Guerin!” 

The air’s cold against his face. The wind’s picking up speed. 

He’s leaning against the side of jeep with Valenti on one side of him and Alex on the other. His legs feel shaky, and his hands feel shaky, and his face feels wet. There’s puke on his boots. Puke on his chin too, and it sticks to his fingers as he tries to wipe it away. He doesn’t know what to do about any of it – doesn’t even know what just happened, how he got out here, how those two come to stand so damned close to him – but Valenti takes care of it, moving with care and telegraphing each move as he cleans Michael’s hands with a fistful of wet wipes. 

“Breathe,” Alex orders. 

His hand cups the back of Michael’s neck, his fingers warm and strong. 

“Don’t wanna,” Michael mutters. 

He says it out loud just to be contrary, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not true. 

Michael doesn’t want to breathe. Doesn’t even want to be here. He doesn’t want Valenti to be so inexplicably kind to him, or Alex to somehow keep him grounded with just a gentle touch. He wants to turn back, back to the burning rubble and then he wants to burrow underneath it, burrow deep down until he finds his mother again. He wants to be with her and he wants to feel loved and safe and happy. He wants to be with his family, with his people. 

He doesn’t want to be alone. He’s so damned _sick_ of being alone. 

“Hush,” Alex says. “It’s alright. I got you.” 

He presses his lips against Michael’s temple, and his nose against Michael’s hair, and he’s breathing slowly, in and out, each breath brushing against Michael’s skin. Michael finds himself matching those even breaths. In and out. In and out. 

“Here,” Valenti says, pressing a water bottle into Michael’s good hand. 

When Michael lifts it to his mouth, his hand doesn’t shake. He rinses his mouth and spits, then he does it again and again until his mouth feels clean. There’s still vomit on his boots though. Maybe on his jeans too. It’s strange, because he doesn’t remember vomiting again, but he must have. He drinks a mouthful of water, and it’s lukewarm and tastes like plastic. He still can’t remember much of anything. While worrying about what else he might have forgotten, Michael digs the toes of his boots into the sand. 

Alex remains a warm pressure against his side, and Valenti’s moved to block the wind. The guy’s frowning, which makes him look less like a Ken-doll. There’s a downwards twist to his lips, and he’s glancing with worried eyes from Michael to Alex, then back again. Michael wants to tell him to keep the worry for Alex and all the ways that Iraq and Jesse Manes and their backward fucking hometown have conspired to mess up his head, but the words catch in his throat. 

Later, he decides. He’ll tell Valenti later. 

“Should we get back in the car?” the guy asks. 

Michael shrugs, and Alex remains quiet. Remains still too, except for his thumb which rubs a circle just behind Michael’s ear. 

“There’s a storm coming,” Valenti continues, patient even as he states the obvious. “And it’s been a long day. I’m sure Michael could do with some rest.” 

Next to him, Alex twitches. The hand on Michael's neck flexes, gripping tighter, and Michael has to stop himself from leaning into the strong grip. 

“I’m not tired,” he protests automatically. 

His voice comes out rough, and his throat hurts. 

“Well, Alex’s starting to look pretty beat,” Valenti continues, voice soft as he turns towards Michael. “Running around, doing all that GI Joe stuff, it’s not gonna be doing his leg any favors, you know? “ 

Michael can feel Alex tensing next to him, can feel him standing straighter as if to prove Valenti wrong. His hand doesn’t drop from Michael’s neck and if he objects to being used like that, well, he doesn’t say. Maybe it's 'cause Valenti's right. Maybe Alex’s leg _does_ get all fucked up when he exerts himself. Maybe he’s in pain, just holding himself together for their sake. Michael can believe that. Can believe it all too easily. 

Either way, Valenti’s right. They should go. 

“Not town,” Michael decides, forcing himself away from Alex. He’s grimly pleased to find that his legs hold steady underneath him. “Drop me off at the trailer.” 

The two of them bundle him back into the backseat, Alex’s jacket over Michael’s shoulders and the heat cranked on to max because for some reason he’s still shivering. Valenti fiddles with the radio and music fill the car. At the familiar chords, some of the tension bleeds out of Alex’s shoulders. Looking at him in the rear-view mirror, it’s all too easy to remember his easy smile whenever he picked up a guitar. Exhaling slowly – in and out, in and out, to the rhythm that Alex had set earlier – Michael allows himself a moment, just a moment, of escape. 

He falls straight into his favorite memory – Alex with eyeliner and nail polish, Alex with hair as spikey as his attitude, Alex with a guitar in his lap and a skateboard by his feet – and when the jeep pulls up by the trailer, Michael’s not cold anymore. He’s not shaking either. 

“I’m good,” he says, slamming the door shut behind him. “You guys better get back into town. As Valenti said; there’s a storm coming.” 

Alex looks like he’s about to disagree, but Valenti brushes his fingers over his arm and says something, too quiet for Michael to hear. Those two had been friends once, best friends even, and maybe that’s why Alex listens. Why he nods, jaw tight and eyes stony. 

“Storm or no storm,” he says, speaking through the open window. “You call me if you need me, Guerin. Understand?” 

_You’re mine._

Without waiting for an answer, Alex then turns the key. The engine growls to life. Michael steps aside, towards the trailer, and he watches them leave. Watches the dust settle behind them. He waits, just to make sure that they’re gone, and then he fishes out the car keys from his pocket. 

He’s going back out there. To the cave. To Noah. 

This isn’t over yet.


End file.
